iridescence

Do you know what happens when you add food coloring to ice and table salt?

Not only do you get a beautiful bowl of colored, fast melting ice; but you can experience iridescence if you use the right pigment. I’m not going to tell you which pigment causes this effect. You’ll have to try all of them to see for yourself. Of course, you can kind of tell in the pictures below, but try it and see if you are right.

you need:ice
table salt
primary food colors
neon food colors- if you can only get one pack, get the neon
*I HIGHLY suggest using both types of food coloring, it’s the best way to discover the pigment that causes the iridescence

to do:1. fill a bowl with ice
2. sprinkle (or pour, try different amounts) table salt onto the ice
3. add drops of food coloring onto the salt
4. you get instant results with some of the colors, no results with some, and have to be a little patient with one color

Here are some great links to explain what exactly is going on in this experiment and ways to understand what causes color:
1. SciScape
2. Causes of Color -LOVE this site! Explains color really well.

Don’t dump the ice when you are done, let the ice melt down and see what happens to the iridescence. Enjoy!

How funny! We had that exact same project during the preschool science workshop right after story time at our public library this week! The girls adored it.

As a rule, I loathe those sorts of group hands-on kinds of workshops with preschoolers. It always seems like me and the girls trucking along minding our own business, surrounded by every other parent in the universe loudly over-explaining and micromanaging their kids work. Barf.

Looks fantastic and fun. Not sure we can get that type of food coloring in Denmark. The ones I use are organic natural colors, which probably won’t work…. but I’m sure the kids would like to try anyway – playing scientist is always fun

Lisa, this is so neat. My boys are sitting here looking at this with me, and are jumping up and down begging to do it. I have all the ingredients in the pantry, and we are off to try it. Thank you for sharing this, it looks like a very fun way to learn.

So… am I behind the times that I didn’t even know they made neon food coloring? This is a great activity. Even if I didn’t have grandbabies to try it with, I’d want to give it a go. Thanks for sharing this activity and an inspirational blog. I love it I’ll be linking on Facebook.

This looks fantastic. My 8 year old boy is soooo into science experiments at the moment. We currently have crystals forming in jars on our kitchen counter ! I’ll have to go get some food coloring and give this a try ! He and his sister will LOVE it !